Rescued passenger describes deadly sinking of boat

By Margaret Stafford

Updated
3:13 pm PDT, Saturday, July 21, 2018

BRANSON, MO - JULY 20: The fleet of the World War II DUKW boats are seen at Ride the Ducks on July 20, 2018 in Branson, Missouri. Hundreds of mourners stopped by the location to pay their respects to the victims after a duck boat capsized in Table Rock Lake in a thunderstorm on Thursday.(Photo by Michael Thomas/Getty Images) less

BRANSON, MO - JULY 20: The fleet of the World War II DUKW boats are seen at Ride the Ducks on July 20, 2018 in Branson, Missouri. Hundreds of mourners stopped by the location to pay their respects to the ... more

Photo: Michael Thomas / Getty Images

Photo: Michael Thomas / Getty Images

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BRANSON, MO - JULY 20: The fleet of the World War II DUKW boats are seen at Ride the Ducks on July 20, 2018 in Branson, Missouri. Hundreds of mourners stopped by the location to pay their respects to the victims after a duck boat capsized in Table Rock Lake in a thunderstorm on Thursday.(Photo by Michael Thomas/Getty Images) less

BRANSON, MO - JULY 20: The fleet of the World War II DUKW boats are seen at Ride the Ducks on July 20, 2018 in Branson, Missouri. Hundreds of mourners stopped by the location to pay their respects to the ... more

Photo: Michael Thomas / Getty Images

Rescued passenger describes deadly sinking of boat

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BRANSON, Mo. — “Grab the baby!”

Those were the last words Tia Coleman recalls her sister-in-law yelling before the tourist boat they were on sank into a Missouri lake, killing 17 people, including nine of Coleman’s family members.

A huge wave hit, scattering passengers on the vessel known as a duck boat into Table Rock Lake near Branson, Coleman said, recounting the ordeal from a hospital bed. When the Indianapolis woman came up for air, she was alone. She prayed.

“I said, ‘Jesus please keep me, just keep me so I can get to my children,’” Coleman told television station KOLR.

She spotted a rescue boat and swam as fast as she could.

Coleman’s husband and three children, ages 1, 7 and 9; her 45-year-old sister-in-law and 2-year-old nephew; her mother-in-law and father-in-law and her husband’s uncle all died Thursday night in the deadliest accident of its kind in nearly two decades. Others killed included a Missouri couple who had just celebrated a birthday; another Missouri couple who were on what was planned as their last extended vacation; an Illinois woman who died while saving her granddaughter’s life; an Arkansas father and son; and a retired pastor who was the boat’s operator.

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Amateur video has captured the accident in which 17 people died after a duck boat packed with tourists capsized and sank in high winds.
The tragedy is one of the deadliest US tourist incidents in years.
Officials say divers have recovered the last bodies from the wreckage of the boat but gave no information on the condition of the victims taken to hospital.
Divers searching the lake on Friday recovered the bodies of four more people killed after a duck boat packed with tourists capsized and sank in high winds.
"No more missing. The age range from the 17 was from one-year-old to up to a 70 year old," Stone County Sheriff, Doug Rader, told the press.
The World War Two-style amphibious vehicle was filled with 31 passengers including children when a microburst storm hit Table Rock Lake outside Branson, Missouri.
Duck boats have been involved in a string of deadly incidents that have killed more than three dozen people across the United States over the past two decades, by drowning and in crashes on land.

Media: Euronews

State and federal investigators were trying to determine what sent the vessel, originally built for military use in World War II, to its demise. An initial assessment blamed thunderstorms and winds that approached hurricane strength, but it wasn’t clear why the amphibious vehicle even ventured into the water.

Coleman said the crew told passengers they were going into the water first, before the land-based part of their tour, because of the incoming storm. The area had been under a severe thunderstorm watch for hours and a severe thunderstorm warning for more than 30 minutes before the boat sank.

Twenty-nine passengers and two crew members were aboard. Fourteen people survived, including two adults who remained hospitalized Saturday. Coleman and her 13-year-old nephew were the only of the 11 members of her family who boarded the boat to make it out alive.

Tia Coleman says the crew showed passengers where the life jackets were but said, “Don’t worry about it; you won’t need it.”

When the swell crashed into the boat, they were told to stay seated, she said.

“When that boat is found all those life jackets are going to be on there” Coleman said. “Nobody pulled them off.”